story5354.xml

story5354.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

While the events of September 11, 2001 were unfolding in the heart of New York City, I was sitting in my junior english class sitting complacently in the second to last desk of the row next to the windows listening to the first lecture we were to recieve on the anglo-saxon work Beowulf. In retrospect, looking back at my persona before the news came over the loud speakers, that a single plane had crashed into the side of the New York World Trade Center, I was to a much larger degree, a child. The casualties reports, scenes of carnage and to a much larger degreem, my own imagination of what must have taken place inside the towers, buildings, and pentagon that day have all left permenant marks on my memory. The scenes of dust covered trade center employees running from a tsunami wave of dust a debris, as well as the other scenes that were presented to us on the evening news have all taught me something that is hard to put into words, and that is even harder to forget. It taught and continues to teach something about the harsh realities of the world, and what it means to be a friend, the expressions of fear and more prominently the examples of courage have all told of what it is to be human and what it is to be something more. I don't know what the ramification of these attacks on foreign, domestic, economic or social asspects is going to be, but the results of these attacks on myself and my friends is clearly evident in the way that we are since that tragic day. The violence and terror of that day may have been able to destroy the twin towers, a section of the pentagon, but in the wake of that destruction it has left brotherhood and community. Gifts that are were paid for dearly with the lives on many people, but that will live on as invaluable treasures for a generation that has witnessed the worst tradgedy to ever take place on American soil.